SOUTHAMPTON, N.Y. — We are on the cusp of a magnificent achievement in golf, one that only six legends have managed: the career grand slam. With one victory at the U.S. Open, Scottie Scheffler will have claimed all four majors, a remarkable and career-defining moment. And how is Scheffler approaching this possible date with immortality?
“Would it be a dream to win the U.S. Open? Of course,” Scheffler said Tuesday afternoon. “But at the end of the day, the grand slam has never been a motivating factor for me.”
Oh. Uh. All right, then.
Scheffler, the world’s No. 1 golfer and holder of four majors (2 Masters, 1 Open Championship, 1 PGA Championship), has always been a bit squirrely on the subject of his own achievements. Not on the achievements themselves, to be specific, but on the pomp and circumstance that surround them. What drives him is the act of winning, not the celebration of that winning.
Over the course of his press conferences prior to the last few majors, Scheffler, with a bit of prompting, has dug deep into his own psyche, revealing a mindset that’s far broader than a Tiger Woods-esque win-at-all-costs one. Scheffler seems to be weighing those costs, and wondering whether he really wants to pay them.
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“I think as a player and as a professional athlete, you’re never going to live up to the expectations of people,” he said Tuesday. “I think sometimes that’s a little bit of the fallacy in our sport is like, if I win the U.S. Open, then I’m going to be satisfied. I’ve won all the tournaments, and my career is essentially over, and I’ve accomplished everything I could want to accomplish. But I think the goal posts are always just moved further and further.”
He didn’t specify who, exactly, was moving the goal posts — himself or other people — but in the end, it doesn’t really matter. Accolades are never as fulfilling as achievement, and achievement is only fulfilling in the context of a greater whole.
Scheffler’s mindset is reminiscent of an old Don Draper line on Mad Men: “What is happiness? It’s a moment before you need more happiness.”
“Yeah, if I win this tournament, that would be amazing,” Scheffler said, “but, I think, then I show up the next week, and it’s like, Okay, now Scottie’s won the grand slam, he’s won all these golf tournaments. Now where do we go from here?’”
The pursuit of victory isn’t the goal. The actual victory isn’t the goal. The goal is to put that victory in the context of a larger life. You don’t need to think too hard to imagine athletes who sacrificed everything for winning … and see what it cost them.
“I try not to focus too much on my successes or my failures, one, because you get beat up an awful lot in this game. It’s a tough sport,” he said. “But, two, if I was feeling so good about all my successes, I probably wouldn’t be too much fun to be around either.”
With one notable exception, grand slams — for those fortunate enough to have managed them — generally hit pretty quickly in a player’s career. Gene Sarazen, Ben Hogan and Tiger Woods hit the career slam on their first attempt, while Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player needed three tries. Only Rory McIlroy stretched the search for a career grand slam out into a decade-plus chase — a pursuit which happened to overlap with the still-futile hunts of Phil Mickelson (needing the U.S. Open) and Jordan Spieth (needing the PGA Championship). This will be Scheffler’s first attempt after adding both the PGA and Open Championships a year ago.
Granted, there’s no guarantee Scheffler will ever claim that slam. Twelve men, including Spieth and Mickelson, have three legs but couldn’t quite manage the fourth. As good as Scheffler is, he’s not a god. And that’s just fine with him.
“I always just wanted to be the best version of myself, and that got me this far,” Scheffler said. “So when it comes to this golf tournament, like I said, I’m going to step on the first tee and remind myself I’ve done everything I possibly could in order to play well, and now it’s just a matter of going out there and trying to execute and kind of going back to enjoying the competition, versus feeling like you have to win for some reason.”
Scheffler tees off at 8:14 a.m. on Thursday. If things break just right, he’ll be celebrating a grand slam three and a half days later. And if not, well, he’ll be just fine. Annoyed, but fine … which is more than you could say for a whole lot of superstars.
